The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel stars Caroline Aaron and Kevin Pollak on the Maisels' brush with divorce
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D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
It seemed like that might be the tune the Maisels, Shirley (Caroline Aaron) and Moishe (Kevin Pollak), would be humming through the end of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in the season's first few episodes. After Moishe's brush with death at the end of season 4, Shirley kicks off season 5 by asking for a divorce, and the two Maisels unleash their new freedom on unsuspecting club patrons at Joel's (Michael Zegen) The Button Club.
But a series of challenges eventually leads them back to each other. "It's a very interesting time for women and Shirley is more than decorative," says Caroline Aaron of Shirley's flirtation with divorce. "Think of the way the whole series started where Midge sets her alarm and gets up early and puts on makeup so her husband doesn't see her naked face. That's the world that these women occupy, and it's too confining for Shirley.
Philippe Antonello/Prime Video Shirley (Caroline Aaron) and Moishe Maisel (Kevin Pollak) on 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel'
"She starts out as being part of the business," she continues. "She knows the books, she knows their money as much as they keep trying to kick her out of having a role in terms of business and their lives together. She wants to get a divorce because he won't stop working. If he's gonna drive himself into the ground and have a heart attack, then I'm going to start dating and find somebody who will take care of themselves. The thread is, 'You almost died. You're gonna leave me holding the bag here and all you have to do is stop working,' and he won't."
Aaron finds Shirley's tactics odd, considering that her controlling nature and ultimatums seem to also not be ideal for Moishe's health. "I remember my father, John, had a heart attack when I was really young, and from the time he had a heart attack, it was always like, 'Don't upset him, don't aggravate him,'" she explains. "Shirley has the opposite reaction, which is, 'Okay, now you're going to do what I want you to do , because I know best.' She's not interested in being quiet and delicate around him after that. She wants him to do what he needs to do in order for this not to happen again. If he won't do it, then bye-bye."
But what then brings them back together in such short order? To Aaron's mind, it's the sudden loss of Shirley's dream of seeing Joel remarried to Mei (Stephanie Hsu) and the promise of a new grandchild.
"Shared losses and shared gains is what makes a relationship stick," she says. "When we're not going to have this grandchild and we share that loss, he becomes my comfort. It's a lesson to Shirley that they're going down together. No matter how much they get on each other's nerves. It's so interesting that almost losing him is what makes her want to kick him to the curb. You would think the opposite would be true. But when they share that loss together, it's very clear. 'Who else am I going to be on this ride with? Moishe is the one, he's my person. And I'm his.'"
Philippe Antonello/Prime Video
For both Aaron and Pollak, filming season 5 was not just about Moishe and Shirley realizing they're each other's person, but discovering that was true of their acting partnership as well and reckoning with having to say goodbye to it. Pollak, in particular, loved the quartet of the Maisels and the Weissmans, Rose (Marin Hinkle) and Abe (Tony Shalhoub).
"We were in a love fest all the way to the end and continuing to this day," he says of the foursome's collaboration. "The four character dynamic has been one of my absolute favorite aspects of this journey. I love these characters. Everyone makes me laugh. I've spent my whole life needing to be the court jester and the funny one on the set, and I didn't on this one. I got to be an audience. It's a true joy."
Adds Aaron: "I kept saying to them along the way, 'We really are the modern-day Honeymooners; we are those two couples in a way.' Kevin is our Jackie Gleason and Tony is our Art Carney. Whenever we're together, it just sings."
Aaron and Pollak knew each other before they worked together on Maisel, but Pollak's background as a stand-up comic shaped their relationship and approach to their performances. "His relationship to how he goes about creating a character is very different than mine," she says. "Like in any marriage, we combined ourselves in a really good way. Kevin is very impatient; all my acting training is very irritating to him, so we ended up being like a married couple as an acting couple."
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 5 is now streaming on Prime Video with new episodes dropping every Friday through May 26.
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